Harris Theatre

809 Liberty Avenue,

Pittsburgh,
PA15222

While searching for performance dates for The Six Rockets, my grandmother’s all-girl vaudeville acrobatic act, I came across this article: http://www.inesitadasilva.com/images/PittburghPressDec9_1929.jpg which suggests the Harris was showing movies as early as December 1929 (see third column, fourth line from bottom). However, most sources suggest The Harris didn’t come into being until much later. Was my grandmother’s theatre therefore another Harris in Pittsburgh perhaps? For those curious, more on The Six Rockets here: http://www.inesitadasilva.com/index.php?page=Keith%27s-Theatre

I checked out a few porn flicks here dating back to the mid-70,s. A few years ago, I went to a screening of the Vincent Gallo film Brown Bunny. The name of the theatre may have changed, but hard-core sex content in(some of)their features was still around.

I’ve been here a couple of times. As part of PGH Film Makers, it’s a good place to see fare that’s just a little out of the mainstream. I wish they’d do something with the exterior, though. That blue still reminds me of its days as a porno house.

No idea why, Ken, but I, for one, can never read the copies posted here from Pittsburgh newspapers. The guys who post stuff from New York newspapers get imaculate copies with large type, which one can navigate from top to bottom and from left to right, but the Pittsburgh ones are always inky black and with tiny reproductions. Wish I understood what the problem here is. Thanks for trying.

We need to sort out something here. The photo you’re discussing is of the wrong Harris theater. The one relating to this particular CT entry, at 809 Liberty Avenue, is functioning today as a moviehouse run by Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

The one in the photo(s) began as the Alvin, changed to the (John P.) Harris and finally became the Gateway. It has been a health club for about a quarter of a century. See separate entry under Gateway Theatre.

The theater on the left is the Byham, which functions today as a performance arts theater. (It’s listed in CT as the Byham.) In the era when the photo was taken, it was the Fulton, which was its identity for several decades. In the vaudeville/silent era, it was the Gayety.

The Art Cinema unfortunately lacked amenities, and when a wholly renovated Squirrel Hill Theatre reopened Christmas Day 1952 with “The Lavender Hill Mob,” the Art Cinema’s dominance as THE local art house began to fade.

As several other art theaters (the Shadyside, King’s Court, Forum, Guild) competed for product in the eastern suburbs, the Downtown Art Cinema lost its upscale audience.

Fow a while it continued to grab occasional important films (“Fanfan the Tulip,” “Forbidden Games”), but by 1954 its bill of fare vascilated among double bills of recent commercial hits (“From Here to Eternity” with “The Wild One”; “The Caine Mutiny” with “On the Waterfront”), nudist camp romps, saucy softcore sex films and a long-defunct series of striptease movies. Some, including “The Orgy at Lil’s Place” in the early 1960s, did some business, but the audience for them was finite – the “raincoat” crowd.

The theater became identified progressively more with harder-core porno in the 1970s and 1980s, and its condition deteriorated markedly over the decades. By the time it closed for renovation into the Harris, many seats were missing, and those remaining were in deplorable condition.

The Harris, though minimalist in amenities, is a great improvement in programming and comfort. Its one drawback is a peculiar acoustical problem.

As a kid, I always wanted to sneek into the Art Cinema. It showed racy movies staring Jane Mansfield and the Immortal Mr. Teas series of movies. Big boobs, big tits and then some, from what I gathered from the marqee and movie posters. And it had some of the oldest broads sitting inside the ticket booth.

I still haven’t had time to see a movie in the renovated space. But that is on my “to do” list.

A while after it had opened in New York in August of 1947, Vittorio De Sica’s film “Shoe Shine” played at the Art Cinema for several weeks. That shattering neo-realist movie about the aftermath of World War II and life in a boys' prison was distributed at the time by Lopert Films, Inc.